Green Gecko wrote:They booked manufacture in a factory for what is essentially a side product, but massively underestimated the demand. Hopefully this time it's a better situation.

You can't book manufacturing capacity and then just say, "OK we need a million extra units kthx" because the factory gets retooled and re-trained to move onto the next product, a process which costs millions and millions of dollars. Most people don't understand that consumer electronics manufacturers with the major exception of possibly Samsung don't own most of the factories they use. That includes even Apple.

Look at GG shilling for Nintendo with his know-how on how manufacturing works! Sickening.

No but seriously, how difficult would it have been to go to another manufacturing plant? Maybe not straight away, but this gap in time between when it was discontinued and when it'll go on sale again cannot be down to Nintendo's inability to find someone to take the job on, can it? Really?

Quite frankly, you can buy a second-hand Wii and download games from the SNES, NES and N64 Virtual Console service which are much better than those available on NES Mini.

I actually found NES Mini pretty disappointing as so many of the NES' best games are missing. With the exception of Mario, Zelda and Megaman, the games on there are pretty basic and have aged really badly.

Green Gecko wrote:They booked manufacture in a factory for what is essentially a side product, but massively underestimated the demand. Hopefully this time it's a better situation.

You can't book manufacturing capacity and then just say, "OK we need a million extra units kthx" because the factory gets retooled and re-trained to move onto the next product, a process which costs millions and millions of dollars. Most people don't understand that consumer electronics manufacturers with the major exception of possibly Samsung don't own most of the factories they use. That includes even Apple.

Look at GG shilling for Nintendo with his know-how on how manufacturing works! Sickening.

No but seriously, how difficult would it have been to go to another manufacturing plant? Maybe not straight away, but this gap in time between when it was discontinued and when it'll go on sale again cannot be down to Nintendo's inability to find someone to take the job on, can it? Really?

I would say in that sense that Nintendo are certainly risk-averse. I'm sure it would have been possible but for whatever reason they didn't want to do it. Perhaps there were offers from other manufacturers but they were just too high and Nintendo always, always look to make a profit on the vast majority of products, which works for them.

It's worth remembering the original NES was a product that saw gigantic success right after the US market completely crashed thanks to Atari over producing things and stuffing the market with shite. I doubt Nintendo's strategy has changed much, and the Wii U was such a unmitigated disaster, perhaps that explains their reticence recently, also leaning heavily on the Switch to succeed.

Green Gecko wrote:I would say in that sense that Nintendo are certainly risk-averse. I'm sure it would have been possible but for whatever reason they didn't want to do it. Perhaps there were offers from other manufacturers but they were just too high and Nintendo always, always look to make a profit on the vast majority of products, which works for them.

It's worth remembering the original NES was a product that saw gigantic success right after the US market completely crashed thanks to Atari over producing things and stuffing the market with shite. I doubt Nintendo's strategy has changed much, and the Wii U was such a unmitigated disaster, perhaps that explains their reticence recently, also leaning heavily on the Switch to succeed.

If that were not true we'd see a lot more F-Zero and Metroid games.

Ta for the insight on the matter, GG. Greatly appreciated!

AndyXL wrote:Quite frankly, you can buy a second-hand Wii and download games from the SNES, NES and N64 Virtual Console service which are much better than those available on NES Mini.

I actually found NES Mini pretty disappointing as so many of the NES' best games are missing. With the exception of Mario, Zelda and Megaman, the games on there are pretty basic and have aged really badly.

Hmm. Never thought of that. I've actually already given away both my SNES Mini pre-orders and so this could be a good alternative way of scratching the retro N fix.

Saint of Killers wrote:Hmm. Never thought of that. I've actually already given away both my SNES Mini pre-orders and so this could be a good alternative way of scratching the retro N fix.

There is an amazing selection of SNES games on the Wii VC - including Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy, Megaman (not just the first one), Mystical Ninja...In fact, with the exception of Starfox, Earthbound and Yoshi's Island, the Wii arguably gives you a much better selection of SNES games.

Plus the VC emulation on Wii is excellent (unlike Wii U). And if you can source the Club Nintendo original SNES controllers, you have a SNES Mini with better games and for less than the current eBay prices

AndyXL wrote:There is an amazing selection of SNES games on the Wii VC... Plus the VC emulation on Wii is excellent (unlike Wii U). And if you can source the Club Nintendo original SNES controllers, you have a SNES Mini with better games and for less than the current eBay prices

I do agree, Andy - the Wii U Virtual Console has an excellent range of games across lots of formats and they are generally of high quality - but I would urge caution about the pricing of them. It is quite a while since I logged into the Wii Shop, but I recall that the prices were often higher than the 3DS and Wii U equivalents.